Uuugh. This is probably the worst chapter I've ever written. I hate it. Well, sorry it's so short xP. Thank you to Imeiije, the only reviewer. Sad face. Oh well. Here's a cookie, Imeiije!

I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.


Faceless

4: Worst Twelve Seconds

The Black and white man fled. He ran like all of hell was chasing after him, like he was going to die any second. His eyes must be playing tricks on him, he concluded. Sweat poured down his stark white face as he began to gag, his stomach flipping over twice before doing a barrel roll.

The man, now far away from the Vongola hide out, abruptly fell to his knees. One sleeve-covered hand was clamped over his mouth, but that was not enough. He keeled over a tree and hurled out whatever had been eaten the day before, and collapsed on the branch panting. All the energy had been drained from his bones all at once, all at once. There was no longer the strength to even lift a finger—all that power, that insane power from before, gone.

For now.

A bird nearby looked at him melt into a weak, small figure, looking straight into the pained person's eyes. They weren't sapphire blue nor golden yellow anymore, but a swimming combination of both. They flickered back and forth from color to color, as if one was straining to dominate over the other. A battle of the irrelevant.

"Hoo, hoo…" the bird called. It was an owl, pure white with shadow dappled feathers. "Hoo, hoo!" It said again.

The person covered his face with both hands and leaned against the huge, rough trunk. When the hands fell, the face was completely different, and the eyes… no longer there. Instead, both were covered with yellowing bandages that 'magically appeared'. Of course, there isn't a such thing as magic.

"What is it, owl?" He asked rhetorically, still recovering. He wasn't a man anymore but looked like a young boy, as his meek voice had hinted. The hair was bright blonde and fell down to the waist in a ponytail, much unlike the previous do.

The boy was surprised when the owl answered back. "Hoo, hoo…" It cracked its neck. "Hoo…who…are you?"

His eyes flashed. What… what was that?

The owl took off with one, two, three mighty flaps, and disappeared into the moon. If the boy was not so confused about how it spoke, he would have noticed the unnaturally shaped pupil… shaped like a one.

But he did not notice, and drifted off into a sleep that pulled at him like none other.


Faceless

Nothing was going right. Sure, Reborn had predicted that battle would follow soon after the 9th's death, but he had never predicted it would be so soon. So fast. And they… they were unprepared. The opponent knew everything…and for some reason he felt like that man could have wiped them out at any moment. But he didn't.

Why?

Reborn shrugged off the idea, but he was not able to shrug off how familiar the voice and how familiar the presence of the person had sounded.

However, he had more important matters to attend to. No-good Tsuna was letting the cons get the best of him—not that there were any pros to the situation. He would not get over the fact that he could do nothing to protect his guardians… his people… his friends. Reborn understood. But that didn't mean he couldn't work harder to make things right.

He tried to tell him, but Tsuna was still in low spirits. Lame for a boss, he thought. But you still have an opportunity.


Faceless

Revenge. That was all he could think about. Revenge for Ryohei, who was in a wheelchair because his legs were dysfunctional. Revenge for Yamamoto, who had to get a blood transfer. And revenge for Chrome.

Chrome who probably saved his life. Chrome who did save his life. Chrome, who was stuck in a coma.

Her heart rate was fluctuating. Her breathing was without pattern—hard and fast one moment, soft and almost invisible the next. Half the time she was close to dying. The rest… stable. Hibari came back covered in blood… said that there were more people underground trying to lead an assault. Now he was missing a couple fingers, but his mountain high pride disallowed him to get direct treatment.

The skylark had passed by Chrome's room and looked inside after that. It confused Tsuna, but he said nothing, for an action even as small as that was hugely abnormal for his cold friend.

But what confused Tsuna the most was Chrome's injury. Not he nor Reborn knew exactly what went wrong that caused her to fall into the state she was in now. The wound really wasn't big—it was only strange. Very strange, actually. Judging from the way the needle-like weapons had entered, the washout man would have originally killed her, piercing right through the heart and out through the back. But right after the needles entered, the man had purposely twisted his wrist so that the weapon narrowly missed her vitals. It was nothing major and nothing compared to the other internal damages she once had to endure.

Which was why everyone was lost for the reason of her emending sleep.

Tsuna stood over her pale body, studying her features. The eye patch was removed to reveal Chrome's empty socket, black and intimidating even though the appearance was harmless. It was then he felt bad for everything she had lost before even meeting the mafia compared to him. And it was then he noticed that the eye patch was lightly clutched between her fingers like a lifeline. His eyes were just able to pick up the faint indigo glow of the eye patch strap …the strap which should have been black.


Faceless

Chrome opened her eyes. Immediately, memories began rushing back at breakneck speed. Her hands reached down to where her body remembered the wound was, but to her absent minded relief and shock, nothing was there. No pain. No scar. No indent, and no scab. It was like there never was a thing wrong.

A light wind ruffled her violet hair and she noted it was much lighter, as if nothing was holding it up nor down anymore. The gust tickled her eyes forcing her to narrow them just a little bit…and a small smile forced a way through her lips.

Wait… wind…? Why would there be wind in…?

Chrome to reality and stumbled backwards, looking around. Where was she? This was obviously not anywhere in the hideout… or anywhere in Nanimori. The grass was long and pricked her bare legs that stretched from a white hospital robe, bending with the breeze. There were small ponds of water glistening images of a clear blue sky and even clearer meadows. Somehow, it was vaguely familiar. Even the air… it… it smelled like… violets.

This is the place where I first met Mukuro-Sama! She thought, horrified and hopeful at the same time. Thoughts flashed through her mind. Will I meet him again? Or… or am I dying? Am I dead?

"My dear Nagi, you will never die on my watch," said a voice.

It's… that's impossible… but it's… "Mukuro-Sama?"

She turned on her heel and stared right into the multicolored eyes of her former master. Her savior. The man she had devoted her life for. Chrome was oblivious to the tears that blurred her vision.

"You… how can you… I thought you were dead!" She choked, frowning heavily.

Mukuro stopped smiling. "Aren't you glad to see me, dear Nagi?"

He was within arms-reach. So close, so close she could smell his sweet, comforting smell. So close… so close she could…

"Of course I'm glad!" She yelled, hugging his waist and burying herself into his shirt, blushing and crying at the same time. "You… I thought I'd never see you again… you don't know how… how glad I am that you're here!"

Mukuro gave a gently touch and let his hand rest on her shoulder. He didn't know how to word what he would say next, but shot for it.

"Nagi…" he murmured into her ear. "I'm sorry… but I can't stay in this world for long."

"…This… This world?" She repeated. "What are you talking about? This is your world!"

He laughed slightly. "I'm afraid not. I didn't create this place, someone else did."

"Someone else?"

"Yes, Nagi dear… and it's about time you meet her…"

"Her?"

"My sister," he confirmed. "It's a long bond between us, even though we are not blood related, we are by spirit. There is much about me you don't know, so I'll tell you a bit of it now."

"My name," he continued, "Is not Mukuro."

Chrome peered at him skeptically, urging him to continue.

"I don't have a name. When I was born, I was called the Nameless…"

"And my sister… she was called the Faceless."

"We were born from a husk of a husk of one who never lived—two people bound together from a different set of genes. There were four of us, actually, but the first 2 died. And they… they were Ken and Chikusa."

"How is that possible?" Chrome interrupted. The whole story was leaving her full of questions she wanted to ask, but she didn't want to bombard him. "Ken and Chikusa are alive. They were back then when I met them, and they still are now…"

"In the lab the day my sister—the Faceless—and I escaped, we revived them using a technology the scientists had," Mukuro responded. "You may not believe me, but…"

"I'd believe anything you'd ever say."

"Thank you," he smiled.

Chrome looked away and asked one more question. "Why were you called the Nameless?"

"That's a hard one," he replied, scratching the back of his head, "since I myself don't quite know, dear Nagi. I think it probably has to do with the fact that I had that variant of illusionary power. But I do have a name now—Rokudo Mukuro. My sister gave me that name, and I gave her a face to remember."

"While I was born not knowing what my name was and how my personality was, she was born not knowing her real face."

"But isn't that—"

Chrome never had time to finish. In a split second, the world exploded around them, and everything erupted in flames. Mukuro reached out his hand to garb hers…. But by a hair's length, their finger's grazed, and missed. The very sky and earth crumbled like a broken mirror, and he lost sight of her.


Faceless

It was 10 O' clock when Nagi snuck out of the house right under her parent's noses, desperate to get away from the screams of her mother and father. It hurt her ears so much that it would sometimes feel like they'd bleed, but she could never cover them, because it never worked. But Nagi had, at last, had enough. She couldn't take it. Not anymore. Her legs took her to a small spot behind the community garden where rarely any cars passed.

That was where she always went when she wanted to be alone, mainly because no one was ever there. And if anyone did pass and she happened to know them, they'd just walk away.

"Look it's that girl," they'd say.

"It's that freak."

"It's that ghost person."

"Hey have you heard the rumors"

"Isn't she haunted?"

"Isn't she creepy?"

No one likes her. They'd talk about Nagi like she couldn't hear them but she did. They'd talk about her right next to her as if she wouldn't care. But she did. She pretended It didn't hurt, but it did hurt. It was painful. But she was Nagi, and she was that ghost person and that freak, so she never showed anything.

Because sometimes, it hurt less to keep everything hidden away.

But Nagi remembered Ink. She remembered the girl she met last week in the alley, and she remembered the kind words and the lack of hatred. She was used to it; used to being looked down on and treated like someone who didn't exist. Treated like a myth. But Ink taught her how nice it was to have a friend. Every day after that Nagi would hope for Ink to appear again, but she never did. She never did.

She wore the hairtie every day. It was the only thing she had left of that friend who she never saw again. But that friend saw her.

As Nagi sat on the curb behind the garden looking down at her feet, she heard a rustle. Suddenly, her neck was grabbed and she was pinned forward and onto the street with her arms twisted behind her in an agonizing angle. Rock scraped her chin. The one holding her down was a man that looked in his mid-20's with blood red eyes that looked like they might have belonged to a feline and had black hair that reached his shoulders, ending in jagged edges. Then he saw her hair tie.

"You," he hissed. "Think very carefully about how you're going to answer my questions."

Nagi said nothing but instead stared into the sky, trying to avoid his dagger stare.

"Answer me!"

He dug her chin deeper into the ground until she cried out from the pressure and the cuts. "Okay!" she stuttered, biting the tip of her tongue in the process.

"Good, now you get it," he smirked.

"Now… have you heard of a person named Ink?"

Nagi froze. Her eyes widened, but she did not answer.

"Have you?" He demanded, slamming her down again. "Spit it out! Where is she?"

She could feel blood slickening her face, trickling down the right side in particular. Her vision was distorted like the world was swirling, even though it wasn't.

"Answer me!"

She got her bearing and said one thing.

"No."

The man turned tomato red and shifted his pressure so far she felt her head might burst. He was leaning on it and driving a knife through some part of her face at the same time.

The pain was amazing.

But She refused to give in. If she did, what would happen to Ink? That one moment of happiness she gave her made up for all the years of neglect and suffering from her parents. Now Nagi felt happy, happy that there was someone who knew she existed and wasn't some monster. And now she'd be content with dying happy.

"Useless runt," the man spat. Then there were lights. Headlights. She felt rather than heard a car coming her way… down the street that should have been deserted. And she was right in the path. The last thing Nagi saw before it hit was a black cat with blood red eyes. That man.


Faceless

Ink felt danger. That hairband she gave Nagi the week before alerted her of a distinct danger, and like promised, she was coming to help. The thought of losing her somehow terrified the strawberry girl in a way she couldn't describe, but by the time she got there, it was too late. It was only 12 seconds between when she saw the car racing down and when it hit the violet haired girl. Only 12 seconds, and that street turned scarlet and wet. Only 12 seconds, and a red eyed cat.


Man, I definitely need to take my time more. I feel like I'm just typing and not thinking! Also, in case it's confusing, the last 2 sections after Chrome meets Mukuro again are dreams of the past. I decided to twist it up a bit. We'll see Bel's side of the story in the next chapter titled 'Connections'. And wow it looks A LOT better with those line thingies I added for the sections...hn...